LAW had been living a busy life at the time of this crisis and climax of his sister’s existence. He had spent day after day in London, lost in that dangerous and unaccustomed delight of spending money, which is only tasted in its full flavour by those who are little accustomed to have any money to spend. Law was tempted by a hundred things which would have been no temptation at all to more experienced travellers—miracles of convenience and cheapness, calculated to smooth the path of the emigrant, but which were apt, on being bought, to turn out both worthless and expensive—and many a day the young fellow came home penitent and troubled, though he started every morning with an ever-renewed confidence in his own wisdom. Lottie’s sudden illness had checked these preparations in mid-career. He had lost the ship in which he meant to have made his voyage, and though he bore the delay with Christian resignation, it was hard to keep from thinking sometimes that Lottie could not have chosen a worse moment for being ill—a little later, or a little earlier, neither would have mattered half so much—but at the very moment when he was about to sail! However, he allowed impartially that it was not his sister’s fault, and did not deny her his sympathy. Law, however, had never been satisfied about the cause of her illness. He did not know why she should have sat out on the Slopes all night. Polly—he refused the idea that it was Polly. Mrs. Despard was bad enough, but not so bad as that; nor did Lottie care enough for the intruder to allow herself to be driven out in this way. But Law kept this conviction to himself, and outwardly accepted the story, not even asking any explanation from his sister. Whatever was the real reason, it was no doubt the same cause which kept her from listening to him when he had tried to tell her of the new step in his own career, and the unexpected liberality of the Minor Canon. “If it had but been he!” Law said to himself—for indeed he, who knew the value of money, never entertained any doubt as to Mr. Ashford’s meaning in befriending him; he was a great deal more clear about this than Mr. Ashford himself.
He lost his passage by the ship with which he had originally intended to go. It was a great disappointment, but what could he do? He could not start off for the Antipodes when his sister might be dying. And as for his own affairs, they had not come to any satisfactory settlement. Instead of saying yes or no to his question to her, Emma, when he had seen her, had done everything a girl could do to make him change his intention. To make him change his intention!—the very idea of this filled him with fierce scorn. It was quite simple that she should make up her mind to leave everything she cared for, for love of him; but that he should change his purpose for love of her, was an idea so absurd that Law laughed at the simplicity of it. As well expect the Abbey tower to turn round with the wind as the weathercock did; but yet Law did not object to stroll down to the River Lane in the evenings, when he had nothing else to do, sometimes finding admission to the workroom when the mother was out of the way, demanding to know what was Emma’s decision, and smiling at her entreaties. She cried, clasping her hands with much natural eloquence, while she tried to persuade him; but Law laughed.
“Are you coming with me?” he said—he gave no answer to the other suggestion—and by this time he had fully made up his mind that she did not mean to come, and was not very sorry. He had done his duty by her—he had not been false, nor separated himself from old friends when prosperity came; no one could say that of him. But still he was not sorry to make his start alone—to go out to the new world unencumbered. Nevertheless, though they both knew this was how it would end, it still amused Law in his unoccupied evenings to do his little love-making at the corner of the River Lane, by the light of the dull lamp, and it pleased Emma to be made love to. They availed themselves of this diversion of the moment, though it often led to trouble, and sometimes to tears; and Emma for her part suffered many scoldings in consequence. The game, it is to be supposed, was worth the candle, though it was nothing but a game after all.
On the day after Mrs. Daventry’s visit, Lottie sent for her brother. He found her no longer a languid invalid, but with a fire of fervid energy in her eyes.
“Law,” she said, “I want you to tell me what you are going to do. You told me once, and I did not pay any attention—I had other—other things in my mind. Tell me now, Law.”
Then he told her all that had happened, and all he had been doing. “It was your sense, Lottie, after all,” he said. “You were always the one that had the sense. Who would have thought when I went to old Ashford to be coached, that he would come forward like this, and set me up for life? Nor he wouldn’t have done that much either,” Law added, with a laugh, “but for you!”
“Law,” cried Lottie, with that fire in her eyes, “this was what we wanted all the time, though we did not know it. It was always an office I was thinking of—and that I would be your housekeeper—your servant if we were too poor to keep a servant; but this is far better. Now we are free—we have only each other in the world. When must we go?”
“We!” cried Law, completely taken aback. He looked at her with dismay. “You don’t mean you are coming? You don’t suppose I—can take you.”
“Yes,” she cried, “yes,” with strange vehemence. “Were we not always to be together? I never thought otherwise—that was always what I meant—until——”
“Ah,” said Law, “that is just it—until! When you’re very young,” he continued, with great seriousness, “you think like that—yes, you think like that. A sister comes natural—you’ve always been used to her; but then, Lottie, you know as well as I do that don’t last.”
“Oh, yes—it lasts,” cried Lottie: “other things come and go. You suppose you want something more—and then trouble comes, and you remember that there is nobody so near. Who could be so near? I know all you like and what is best for you, and we have always been together. Law, I have had things to make me unhappy—and I have no home, no place to live in.”
“I thought,” said Law, severely, “that they were very kind to you here.”
“Kind! it is more than that,” cried Lottie, her hot eyes moistening. “They are like—I do not know what they are like—like nothing but themselves; but I do not belong to them. What right have I to be here? and oh, Law, you don’t know——. To walk about here again—to live, where one has almost died—to see the same things—the place—where it all happened——”
Lottie was stopped by the gasp of weeping that came into her throat. She ended with a low cry of passionate pain. “I must go somewhere. I cannot stay here. We will go together, and work together; and some time, perhaps—some time—we shall not be unhappy, Law.”
“I am not unhappy now,” said the young man. “I don’t know why you should be so dismal. Many a fellow would give his ears to be in my place. But you—that’s quite a different thing. A man can go to many a place where he can’t drag his sister after him. Besides, you’ve got no outfit,” cried Law, delighted to find so simple a reason, “and no money to get one. Old Ashford has been awfully kind; but I don’t think it would be nice to draw him for an outfit for you. It wouldn’t be kind,” said Law, with a grin, “it would be like the engineer fellow in Shakespeare—burst with his own boiler. You know that would never do.”
“A woman does not need an outfit, as a man does,” said Lottie; “a woman can put up with anything. If you go away, what is to become of me? When you are young, whatever you may have had to make you unhappy, you cannot die when you please. That would be the easiest way of all—but it is not possible; you cannot die when you please.”
“Die—who wants to die?” said Law. “Don’t you know it’s wicked to talk so. Why, there’s your singing. You’ll be able to make a great deal more money than I ever shall; and of course you may come over starring to Australia when you’re a great singer; but it would be ruin to you now to go there. Don’t be carried away by it because I’m lucky just now, because it’s my turn,” he said; “everybody wants to hold on by a fellow when he’s in luck—but it is really you who are the lucky one of the family.”
“My voice is gone,” said Lottie, “my home is gone. I have nothing in the world but you. All I used to have a little hope in is over. There are only two of us in the world, brother and sister. What can I do but go with you? I have nobody but you.”
“Oh, that’s bosh,” said Law, getting up from his seat in impatience. “I don’t believe a word they say about your voice. You’ll see it’ll soon come back if you give it a chance; and as for having nobody but me, I never knew a girl that had so many friends—there’s these old Temples, and heaps of people; and it seems to me you may marry whoever you like all round. A girl has no right to turn up her nose at that. Besides, what made old Ashford so kind to me? You don’t find men doing that sort of thing for nothing in this world. I always think it’s kindest to speak out plain,” said Law, reddening, however, with a sense of cruelty, “not to take you in with pretending. Look here, Lottie. I can’t take you with me. I have got no more than I shall want for myself, and I may have to knock about a great deal there before I get anything. And to tell the truth,” said Law, reddening still more, “if I was to take a woman with me, it would be more natural to take—someone else. A fellow expects to marry, to make himself comfortable when he gets out there. Now you can’t do that if you have a sister always dragging after you. I’ve told you this before, Lottie—you know I have. I don’t want to hurt your feelings when you’ve been ill—but what can a fellow do? To say what you mean once for all, that is the best for both you and me.”
Law made his exit abruptly when he had given forth this confession. He could say what was necessary boldly enough, but he did not like to face his sister’s disappointment. It was a comfort to him to meet Mr. Ashford at the door.
“Lottie is upstairs,” he said. “She wants me to take her with me, but I have told her I can’t take her with me. I wish you would say a word to her.”
Law rushed away with a secret chuckle when he had sent to his sister a new suitor to console her. If one lover proves unsatisfactory, what can be better than to replace him by another? Law felt himself bound in gratitude and honour to do all that he could for Mr. Ashford, who had been so kind to him; and was it not evidently the best thing—far the best thing for Lottie too?
The Minor Canon went upstairs with a little quickening of his pulse. He had been a great deal about Captain Temple’s little house since the morning when he had brought Lottie there, and her name and the thought of her had been in his mind constantly. He had not defended himself against this preoccupation, for would it not have been churlish to put the poor girl out of his mind when she was so desolate, and had no other place belonging to her? Rather he had thrown open all his doors and taken in her poor pale image, and made a throne for her, deserted, helpless, abandoned as she was. A generous soul cannot take care of itself when a friend is in trouble. Mr. Ashford, who had been on the edge of the precipice, half consciously, for some time, holding himself back as he could, thinking as little about her as he could, now let himself go. He felt as the Quixotes of humanity are apt to feel, that nothing he could give her should be withheld now. If it did not do her any good, still it would be something—it was all he could do. He let himself go. He thought of her morning and night, cherishing her name in his heart. Poor Lottie—life and love had alike been traitors to her. “Though all men forsake thee, yet will not I,” he said, as once was said rashly to a greater than man. What could he ever be to her, wrung as her heart was by another? but that did not matter. If it was any compensation to her, she should have his heart to do what she liked with. This was the sentiment in the mind of the Minor Canon, who ought, you will say, to have known better, but who never had been practical, as the reader knows. He went upstairs with his heart beating. How gladly he would have said a hundred words to her, and offered her all he had, to make up for the loss of that which she could not have. But what his generosity would have thrown at her feet, his delicacy forbade him to offer. Lottie, in her disappointment and desertion (which he only divined, yet was certain of) was sacred to him. Mrs. Temple was absent about her household concerns, and there was nobody in the drawing-room upstairs except Lottie, who in her excitement and despair did not hear his step, nor think that anyone might be coming. She was walking about the room, with her hands clasped and strained against her breast, her weak steps full of feverish energy, her eyes glowing with a fire of despair. “What shall I do? what shall I do?” she was moaning in the anguish of her heart.
When Ernest Ashford opened the door, her back was turned to him, so that he heard this moan, and saw the passionate misery of her struggle, before she knew that he was there. When she saw him a momentary gleam of anger came over her face; then she put force upon herself, and dropped her hands by her side like a culprit, and tried to receive him as she ought. As she ought—for was not he her brother’s benefactor, whom all this time she had been neglecting, not thanking him as he had a right to be thanked? The change from that anguish and despair which she had been indulging when alone, to the sudden softening of courtesy and compunction and gratitude which, after a pathetic momentary interval of struggling with herself, came over her face, was one of those sudden variations which had transported Rollo in the beginning of their acquaintance by its power of expression. But this change, which would have pleased the other, went to the heart of the Minor Canon, to whom Lottie had never appeared in the light of an actress or singer, but only as herself.
“Mr. Ashford,” she said faintly. “I wanted to see you—to thank you——”
She was trembling, and he came up to her tenderly—but with a tenderness that never betrayed its own character—grave and calm, for all that his heart was beating—and took her hand and arm into his, and led her to her chair. “You must not thank me for anything,” he said.
“For Law——”
“No; not for Law. If it would give you any ease or any comfort, you should have everything I have. That is not saying much. You should have all I can do or think,” he said, with a thrill in his voice, which was all that betrayed his emotion. “The misery of human things is that all I can do is not what you want, Lottie—and that what you want is out of my power.”
He asked no permission to call her by her name; he was not aware he did it—nor was she.
“I want nothing,” she said, with a passionate cry. “Oh, do not think I am so miserable and weak. I want nothing. Only, if Law could take me with him—take me away—to a new place—to a new life.”
He sat down beside her, and softly pressed the hand which he held in his own. Yes, this was the misery of human things, as he said—he did not repeat the words, but they were in his face. That which she wanted was not for her, nor was his desire for him; other gifts might be thrown at their feet, and lie there unheeded, but not that for which they pined and were ready to die.
“Do you think it must not be?” she said. Lottie was willing to make him the judge of her fate—to allow him to decide for her how it was to be. Yes, but only in that way in which he was powerless. He smiled, with a sense of this irony, which is more tragic than any solemn verdict of fate.
“I do not think it could be,” he said, “except with perfect consent and harmony; and Law—does not wish it. He is like the rest of us. He does not care for what he can have, though another man might give his life for it. It is the way of the world.”
“I am used to it,” said Lottie, bowing her head; “you need not say it is the way of the world to break it to me, Mr. Ashford. Oh, how well I ought to know! I am used to being rejected. Papa, and Law, and——”
She put her hand over her hot eyes, but she did not mean to drop into self-pity. “Nobody cares to have me,” she said after a moment, with the quiver of a smile on her lips. “I must make up my mind to it—and when you are young you cannot die whenever you please. I must do something for myself.”
“That is it,” said the Minor Canon, bitterly—“always the same; between those you love and those that love you there is a great gulf; therefore you must do something for yourself.”
She looked at him wondering, with sad eyes. He was angry, but not with her—with life and fate; and Lottie did not blush as she divined his secret. It was too serious for that. It was not her fault or his fault; neither of them had done it or could mend it. Had she but known! had he but known! Now there was nothing to be done but to unite what little wisdom they had over the emergency, and decide what she was to do—for herself. Her father had no place for her in his house. Law would not have her with him; her lover had forsaken her; and to those who would have had her, who would have cherished her, there was no response in Lottie’s heart. Yet here she stood with her problem of existence in her hands, to be solved somehow. She looked piteously at the man who loved her, but was her friend above all, silently asking that counsel of which she stood so much in need. What was she to do?
Just then the door opened, and Mrs. Temple came in with Dr. Enderby, who had been kind to Lottie, as they all were, and who regulated everybody’s health within the Precincts, from Lady Caroline downward. The good doctor, who had daughters of his own, looked with kind eyes upon the girl, who was so much less happy than they. He took her slender wrist into his hand, and looked into her luminous, over-clear eyes, wet with involuntary tears.
“She is looking a great deal better. She will soon be quite herself,” he said cheerfully; but winked his own eyelids to throw off something, which was involuntary too.
“Yes, yes,” said Captain Temple, who had come in after him. “She will soon be quite herself; but you must give her her orders to stay with us, doctor. We want to be paid for nursing her—and now she will be able to run about on all our errands, and save us a great deal of trouble, and keep us happy with her pretty voice and her singing. Did you ever hear her sing, doctor? The Signor is very anxious about her. We must begin our lessons again, my pretty Lottie, as soon as ever the doctor gives leave.”
Dr. Enderby looked very grave. “There is no hurry about that,” he said, “let her have a little more time. The Signor must be content to wait.”
Now Lottie had said, and they all had said, that her voice was gone; but when the doctor’s face grew so grave, a cold chill struck to their hearts. She gave him a startled look of alarmed inquiry, she who had suddenly realised, now that all dreams were over, that question of existence which is the primitive question in this world. Before happiness, before love, before everything that makes life lovely, this mere ignoble foundation of a living, must come. When one is young, as Lottie said, one cannot die at one’s own pleasure—and suddenly, just as she had got to realise that necessity, was it possible that this other loss was really coming too? She looked at him with anxious eyes, but he would not look at her, to give her any satisfaction; then she laid her hand softly on his arm.
“Doctor,” she said, “tell me true—tell me the worst there is to tell. Shall I never have my voice again? is it gone, gone?”
“We must not ask such searching questions,” said the doctor, with a smile. “We don’t know anything about never in our profession. We know to-day, and perhaps to-morrow—something about them—but no more. ”
He tried to smile, feeling her gaze upon him, and made light of her question. But Lottie was not to be evaded. All the little colour there was ebbed out of her face.
“Shall I never sing again?” she said. “No—that is not what I mean; shall I never be able to sing as I did once? Is it over? Oh, Doctor, tell me the truth, is that over too?”
They were all surrounding him with anxious faces. The doctor got up hurriedly and told them he had an appointment. “Do not try to sing,” he said, “my dear,” patting her on the shoulder. “It will be better for you, for a long time, if you do not even try;” and before anyone could speak again he had escaped, and was hurrying away.
When he was gone, Lottie sat still, half stupefied, yet quivering with pain and the horror of a new discovery. She could not speak at first. She looked round upon them with trembling lips, and great tears in her eyes. Then all at once she slid down upon her knees at Mrs. Temple’s feet.
“Now all is gone,” she said, “all is gone—not even that is left. Take me for your servant instead of the one that is going away. I can work—I am not afraid to work. I know all the work of a house. Let me be your servant instead of the one who is going away.”
“Oh, Lottie, hush, hush! are you not my child?” said Mrs. Temple, with a great outcry of weeping, clasping her shoulders and drawing the upturned face to her breast. But Lottie insisted gently and kept her position. In this thing at least she was not to be balked.
“Your servant,” she said, “instead of the one that is going away. I am an honest girl, though they all cast me off. I cannot sing but I can work—your servant, or else I cannot be your child. ”